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Medical Roleplay Guide
With a setting as violent as that of the Terminator universe, characters are almost guaranteed to be injured, maimed, or even killed at some point. Many times I encounter individuals who are unable, or unwilling to injury roleplay. This is written with the hope of solving that problem. 'Medical RP' Medical roleplay, as it is usually referred to, is any situation where your character is treating another character who is injured. A common misconception about medical roleplay is that the medic has to essentially study medicine to do quality medical roleplay. That is not the case. In certain situations accurate treatments can be beneficial, but the majority of the time overly-specific procedures are often confusing, and simply not fun for the patient to roleplay. It makes medical roleplay into a chore and means to an end rather than another outlet for character interaction and story development like it should be. Remember, the medical treatments are just what your character is doing, not what defines it. A basic understanding of how a human works is all that is needed for believable, and quality medical roleplay. As you have been a human all of your life this shouldn't be an issue, but if you decided to sleep through your health classes you might have to find another source of information. Fortunately for you, the internet is vast and includes many helpful materials that can be found with a simple Google search. Military medical handbooks are often quite detailed and informative, and easily available for free over the internet. However, don't allow yourself to fall into the all too common trend of following these books to the letter, never making mistakes, and generally being a god-like medic who never makes mistakes. The quality of medical roleplay is not be judged by the accuracy and success of the treatments, but the believability of the character's interactions with each other. Treatments that have minor mistakes(either IC or OOC) but prompt interesting character interactions are far superior to text-book procedures that leave the patient bored as the medic emotes long, boring paragraphs to themselves. I won't be writing about specific treatments, how many milligrams to use of certain drugs, etc as I simply do not believe that to be important enough to mention. I would also recommend that you take your time doing medical roleplay. While certain situations do call for In Character haste, it can be very disruptive to roleplay when one party does rapid-fire emotes before the others involved are able to even react. 'Injury RP' Injury roleplay is nearly the exact same as medical roleplay, only from the other side. A good medic is often a good patient, and vice versa, because they understand how the human body functions when damaged. One of the most important things to keep in mind is how survivable your specific injury will be. While being shot anywhere is very deadly, certain areas such as the chest, head, and joints are likely to be more severe. It can be helpful to learn the various effects of certain conditions, such as severe blood loss. Additionally, the reaction to injury can vary greatly depending on the person. While certain injuries will immediately limit mobility and function, it is not uncommon for individuals to be wounded severely, possibly even fatally and not notice it until much later. On average, men tend to be able to manage pain better than women. This does not mean that they can survive greater injury, only that they tend to feel it a bit less, which can easily become a vulnerability. Thus, it is possible to continue to run away, or fight while severely wounded and still be injury RPing legitimately due to the psychological shock of being injured. Types of Injury There are three basic types of injury which are most common in our environment. Understanding what each of these do to the can greatly improve the believability of your roleplay. No medical diploma required, I will tell you all you need to know here: * Burns- As SkyNET's machines are by now almost exclusively armed with advanced Phased Plasma weaponry, it is obvious that there will be many situations where you will have to deal with a burn wound. In our canon, we have weakened the severity of these 'Plasma Burns' to be more friendly to roleplay. The burns are still severe enough to be feared, however, as they are accompanied by massive pain and potential for a slow, drawn out death by infection. This means to anyone familiar with the old T:RP that they will very rarely burn straight to the bone anymore, and will instead impart most of their damage to the person's skin, and in sever cases muscle tissues. Luckily, burns to regions such as the limbs are not often immediately life threatening as there is no bleeding nor major organs involved. However, the pain is almost always enough to remove the ability to fight from the victim, leaving them vulnerable should they not be rescued immediately. After checking ABC's (Airway, Breathing, and Circulation), the severity of the burn should be determined. If it is minor, the patient will often be able to move to an established infirmary under their own power with minimal complications. There is very little risk involved when moving a patient with a burn. * Bullets- Though many machines are armed with Plasma weaponry, the T-600 and other older machines are armed with a conventional 'ballistic' weapon. Combined with friendly fire incidents, this makes GSWs (gunshot wounds!) frequent occurrences. Unlike burns, gunshot wounds are immediately life threatening and generally more fatal. Exsanguination (bleeding out) can occur within minutes if an artery has been hit. The exact treatment required will of course vary by the location the victim is wounded, however the most important rule is to slow, or even stop the bleeding to prolong their life. It is important to recognize the type of bleeding as well; Arterial bleeding will come in gushes which coincide with the beating of the patient's heart, whereas both venus and capillary bleeding are both steadier and much less severe as they are easier to control. Arterial bleeding is often difficult to stop, and can cause the patient to bleed out in a short amount of time. An important note is that removing the projectile/closing the wound is not the highest priority. Slowing the bleeding, and moving the patient to a safe location for further treatment is. * Breaks- Whether caused by an intense CQC fight with a drone, or simply a nasty misstep in the ruins, broken bones are also common. Though the proper treatment varies by the severity and location of the break, on the most basic level it involves merely setting the bone correctly and immobilizing so that the body can heal. For minor, incomplete fractures the treatment can be as simple as immobilizing the affected limb and allowing it to heal. Depending on severity, treating broken fingers can be as simple as buddy taping the damaged finger to an intact one, or can require complicated surgery. For major fractures, surgery can be required to repair the damage completely. There can be multiple fragments of bone which will need to be re-aligned or possibly removed to encourage proper healing. If available, screws should be used to secure the pieces. Misc Information Here's some random information that can you may find helpful. * Injections/Blood drawing When using needles, there are some basic guidelines which should be followed to prevent harming the patient. The first is cleaning the injection site, as you will be breaking the skin(bodies first barrier against disease and infection!) when the needle is used. An alcohol pad or cotton ball should works well enough. The needle should also be clean, of course. When filling a syringe with a drug, care should be taken to have no air bubbles in the syringe as these can cause embolisms which are dangerous. * Cauterization Cauterization is basically the use of heat to help control bleeding. It can be done with chemicals or electricity, but in our setting its basic form, a hot piece of metal, will be most common. Cauterization will also help control infection as the heat kills bacteria and viruses, but it can also cause unnecessary damage to some tissues, so it should be done only by an individual with at least a moderate understanding of what they are doing. As a side note, burn wounds(plasma included) rarely bleed much because of the heat that causes them also cauterizing the area. Setting A commonly overlooked aspect of medical and injury oriented roleplay is the elements of the setting which will affect it. With no functioning infrastructural to produce medicines and medical supplies, the post apocalyptic doctor must be creative in their use of treatments. Medical technology will have reverted to something resembling the the 1800s. Clean tools and sterilized equipment would be in short supply, making infection a widespread cause of death for even relatively minor injuries. Without the training and equipment we have in the modern age, amputations would occur more frequently. In lieu of quality drugs, some doctors would revert to using unproven herbal treatments. An easy way to figure out what you should, or shouldn't have as either an unaffiliated doctor or Resistance Medical Specialist is to think of how your character would have obtained it. If the best solution you can think of is 'scavenging', it is a good idea to not use that specific drug or equipment. Spawning entire medical bays, especially when they don't make sense such as in locations that are not bunkers, is a horrible thing to do. You might be surprised how fun it can be to think of out of the box solutions using what is available rather than resorting to ass-spawning. * Tools Reusable tools such as forceps, needles, and other metal instruments can be sterilized for re-use. As these don't deplete from use like medicines do, it is generally acceptable to have such things as long as your character would understand the proper methods of sterilization. * Drugs While most drugs from before Judgement Day would have been scavenged by now, many would have expired or been used. Without any production centers to create more of them, safe drugs from before the war would be a highly sought after luxury that is always in short supply. Though there are some pockets of Resistance who may attempt to do so, the inability to plant large crops without detection contributes significantly to the rarity of medical supplies. * Opium The Opium Poppy plant would be a potential source for several very helpful drugs. As you may know, both Morphine and its more illicit cousin Heroin are derived from the Opium plant, as well as several other less known drugs that I don't feel the need to discuss. Though the knowledge on how to create these drugs would be uncommon, it is a potential source of powerful analgesics. * Alcohol Producing a simple alcohol such as Ethanol would be well within the Resistance's capabilities. Though some would definitely consider drinking it, its usefulness in both the medical and transportation areas would make such an idea nearly criminal. As the most deadly aspect of plasma burns is infection, even the most under-supplied infirmary or medic would need it. Category:Guides